Personalised 2011 £2 Coin

Not sure on the weight, don't have accurate scales here and I doubt he will let me take it into uni to use their super accurate scales.

Every other coin I've seen has an edge inscription. The 'ribs' on the edge seemed rather raised too.

Unless the fellow who made it had several girlfriends all named "Lani", then I don't see why more than one would have been made, so it's not surprising that it has no other Google hits.

As to it's manufacture, I would assume that it's either a complete fake/fantasy or it's the core of a genuine £2 coin, with the outer ring thrown away and replaced by this one specially made by or for Lani's friend. The Royal Mint does not do private one-off personalized coins like this; it would have been done elsewhere. I should point out that in Britain, it's also illegal to make "replica" coins that look like legal tender, and it's illegal to modify a coin in this way. I assume that whoever made this was unaware of this fact.

A modern-day love token. Alas, Lani doesn't seem to have appreciated her gift, since I assume the OP's neighbour's name isn't "Lani".

Thanks for the responses all. I will get some more photos tomorrow and compare to legitimate £2 coins. Is it common for fraudulent £2 coins to be made?

Personally, I collect the 50p, £1 and £2 special issues (primarily) and I got a little excited that this was a one off legal tender. I had heard about the outside ring being removable.

I also am aware that it's illegal to deface/modify money. It was found in his change from a thrifty supermarket chain so I can only assume it was a love token from a previous lover/given to a skint person!

On the topic of coin modification and 'replicas' I am aware that the Kingdom of Swaziland purchased an old £1 coin press from the UK and uses/used it to make a coin in their currency (worth 1/13th of £1). I used to know someone who would find these in fruit machines at his pub where someone was obviously emptying the machine of real pounds and topping it up with the fake ones!

There's been some discussion of recent fake £2 designs on other threads esp. "Fake £1", but they are still clearly much rarer than fake £1. None like yours though.

Hence the questions, which might shed light on whether it had a specially made ring to go round a bona fide centre, etc.

It's also been claimed that the "Swazi swizz" coin was made by Royal Mint as one of its issues for other countries. I got one once in change from a Tesco machine and it has a distinctly larger diameter than any genuine £1 I compared it to, including a Gibraltar 'skull' £1 that also a plain milled edge. Created on the accession of the famously polygamous and autocratic King Mswati III of Swaziland in 1986, it depicts him and I think also his co-regent mother. Even he had to change to a much lighter brass-plated steel version as of 2009, according to the Numista catalogue. The all-brass version is worth more ebayed than as an actual instrument for fraud, as often seems to be the way...

Hi Serth. If it is taken to the bank they will probably keep it and almost certainly won't have heard of it. The chances are that The Royal Mint itself won't have, unless they have someone following this. The outer part is fake, that's for sure.

Hi all, got home and got some more pictures of the coin.

I have noticed on other £2 coins that the very centre circle is flat to the touch, whereas the details in the centre are raise.

The colour, when compared to another new (2014) coin, is very bright, almost too bright. Especially for a 2011 coin which you would have expected to be in circulation. I'm assuming the metal is harder than the commonly used metal as this coin has no chips/dents depsite being in a till.


As you can see, there is no edge inscription (around the thin side of the coin) but the pattern around the outer ring on the flat side of the coin matches a legitimate one almost identically.

As mentioned before, it is 'double dated' - dates on both sides.
The head side of the coin even has the standard 'IRB' printed underneath it

It's a pretty good copy isn't it!

I'm convinced now that its 100% fake, inside and outside, but it's still something I'd like to know more about. Are there pictures of these other fake £2 coins that you can share?

Also, the middle doesn't rattle like asked above. There is also no noticeable weight difference between coins but obviously without high accuracy scales we won't be able to tell.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lani - been looking up the meaning of the name, maybe it was a name originating from a certain country, and it apparently means 'baby' in Hawaian, which might have been a name/petname for the maker's love?

I hadn't noticed the lack of denomination name on the coin, although it's obvious now!

Is it just me, or does the date look like a 20 and then two ones after it, almost as it if was created using a 20 and two ones rather than 4 seperate numbers? The zero looks a little closer to the 2 and looks possibly slightly smaller?

Also, the hologram in the middle is completley raised so I guess they didn't have the technology to make this portion of it look real!